The 19.5% stake is planned to be sold in 2015, and the 423 billion ruble ($11 billion) income from the sale has already been accounted in the budget for 2015

MOSCOW, September 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Foreign investors are still interested in purchasing a 19.5% stake in Russian state-owned oil major Rosneft, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said told reporters Thursday.

“There are two options of selling the stake — as a single 19.5% lot or in two tranches. There has been no decision yet, financial consultants should prompt it,” Ulyukayev said. “The price should be not lower than the price of an initial public offering, which, I think, gives an estimation of about 560 billion rubles ($14.5 billion) for the stake,” he added.

Currently, state-owned Rosneftegaz holds a 69.5% stake in the company. The 19.5% stake is planned to be sold in 2015, and the 423 billion ruble ($11 billion) income from the sale has already been accounted in the budget for 2015.

Ulyukayev said separately that Rosneft has not sent any formal request on using funds from the National Wealth Fund. “There is no principal decision (on allocating the funds) as there has been no formal request. We have only seen the company’s presentation, but there has been no official request,” Ulyukayev said.

On Wednesday, business daily Kommersant reported citing sources that the government approved a program to support Rosneft amid sanctions, including purchase of 500 million-1 trillion ruble company’s bonds, while the money for the purchase will be provided from the wealth fund.

In August, the company asked the government for financial aid due to the U.S. sanctions. CEO Igor Sechin suggested that the fund should purchase 1.5 trillion rubles ($39 billion) worth of new Rosneft bonds, as one of the options.